And the weather.....

It seems like just last week, the skies were blue and the temperatures were in the 60's.  Oh, wait, I think that was last week and maybe in February as well.  Utah weather---

 Hope spring is coming to your neighborhood.

Biology

A couple of new pictures of my biological grandfather-Leonard Tegland (with his granddaughter Kristina)

 And my dad with my mom--

It is hard to look at photos and say, yes they seem alike, but when I look at the photos of Leonard, I sense the connection with my dad.  Red hair and all.

We have been watching The Relative Race on BYU TV and in our own way, we have had our own adventure and in October we will take our own drive to meet our family.

(I really think someone should build a travel agency around this concept.  I don't want to be on TV and do all of the challenges, but how fun to drive around the country and meet relatives.)

They didn't need to....

but that made it that much sweeter.

One of my little clients graduated from our therapeutic preschool on Friday.  And he and his family gave me (and his two teachers) a sweet note, flowers, and a gift card to Cafe Rio.  They are continuing in family therapy, so it wasn't a goodbye for us yet, but still a very sweet gesture.

Normally I wouldn't post a picture of the gift card, but I thought it
had  cute message: "Rejoice, Somebody loves you....lots and lots."

People are so sweet and sweetness and kindness really is impactful and meaningful for those of us on the receiving end.

March Madness: Jena-style

Jena continues to have an awesome experience at her college bridge program.  Not only is she having fun and making great memories, she also is learning things about herself, about independence including getting enough sleep, the list goes on and on.

A couple of weeks ago, Jena told me about a geologist whose last name was Angus and something she had learned about him in her geology class.  It is a little thing.  It will probably never matter to her in her adult life.  But she was sitting there in a class of university students with a teacher lecturing with his powerpoint and she understood and remembered.  More importantly, she knew she had learned something and was proud to share it with me---who has never taken Geology!  That is a win-win!

(Sidenote:  Jena has to choose her classes based on the Tuesday/Thursday class schedule that has a Best Buddy volunteer in the class to sponsor her and the teacher's permission.  She was hoping to do a theatre class but the teacher never responded with permission in time, so her second choice was Geology {probably thanks to Sis. Spencer, her fourth grade teacher, who made all her students love rocks.}.  Anyway, the Geology teacher quickly said yes and Jena joined the class.  Just a few weeks ago, Vicki (Wonderwood) told me that the Geology teacher has a 13 year old daughter with Down syndrome and whenever he sees Jena in his class, it makes him so happy and hopeful for his daughter's future.  And, besides, he just loves her in his class.  What are the odds that Jena would end up in a class with a professor at BYU with a child with Down syndrome.  Pretty Awesome!)

This evening, they went to the home of one of their staff and played games and cooked smores.  Happy day for Jena as you can see.

They have added a lot of fitness activities in their days at BYU.  On Thursday, a nearby trampoline and exercise place has invited them to come once a week to do different activities like Zumba, jumping on the trampolines, and other exercise classes.

Wednesday, Brooke and Bruna often take them to the Provo Recreation Center and try out lots of different things.

Heading out from their townhouse for another adventure:

In the report, Brooke said that Jena was "really killing it on the rowing machine."

And bowling is always popular with Jena.  Not sure why she has duck lips in this picture, but here it is:

Jena has also added a new activity at home as well.  Special Olympics Swim started a couple of weeks ago.  It was cloudy when we went into Layton Surf and Swim before 8:00 a.m., but we came out to this:

Snow.......Jena was laughing so much as neither of them had brought clothes to change into and Emily had forgotten her coat so she was wrapped up in mine in the back seat.  I told Jena I wanted them to get out so I could take a picture of them in swim suits, wet hair, and coats, but she didn't want to go back out into the snow storm.  The flakes were huge.

Jena has not been swimming with SQ since she started her mission, but I think she is glad to be back.  They work hard at their practices.

A day in the life of Jena.

Grandchildren update

And while I didn't see my other grandchildren in person this past week, I do want them to know that we love to see the photos of them that their parents share with us.  It is so great to live at this time  when I can see photos and watch these important people grow up.

From Tosha/Austen:

Austen with Cooper (11 months)

Niki at his playgroup on base "making the sun smile."

From Jessica/Elessia:

From Feb. 20-- Liam
one of the rare times with snow this year

Zander who is now more of a walker than crawler

Liam is explaining to Zander what the TV show is about.

From Scott/Chantel:  (I know I posted some in the previous blog post, but I want them all together in this post as well.)

Scarlett at her preschool

This is how warm some days in February were when the sun
was shining on their back patio.

We are so lucky to have these little people in our lives.

Have a great week.

Marching on through March

...it had to be used as some point over the years as a title of a blog post.  This week fit as well as any, I guess.  It is hard to believe how time is flying by for us. 

This week was more of a "regular week" for me--I worked Monday through Friday and only had specific things to do away from the house on two of the evening--Monday to take Jena to Provo and visit Ben and on Friday for the annual UDSF Board and Volunteer Dinner and Meeting.  I wish that I could say that I got a lot of productive things done Tuesday through Thursday....I got some things done, but not as much as I think I should get done.  Some days, working can be exhausting (imagine that!) 

One difficult thing was that the clinical director at The Children's Center has taken another job as a clinical director at the YWCA women's shelter.  That is good for her, but very difficult for us who are left behind.  Not only has she been my clinical director, she also serves as my supervisor for my clinical hours and license.  She, of course, will sign off on the hours that she had supervised for me, but the problem is that there is no one in the agency that can supervise me (and the other three who are in the same situation.)  Everyone else either hasn't worked long enough with their own LCSW or they have degrees in other fields like mental health counselor or psychology.  She is also the only other one in the clinical staff who actually had children which is sometimes nice to give some reality when we are talking about cases. Plus she is an amazing person and I will really miss her friendship and stability at TCC.  It will be an interesting time ahead and it is hard to predict what will happen for our staff as we figure it out.

At our UDSF dinner meeting, we launched our new tag line:  Love. Lift. Launch.  This has been a three month process for us to discuss and narrow down the message we wanted to send with a tagline.  I am not sure how other people feel, but I am falling in love with it more and more.  I had to give a brief introduction of it at the meeting.  I mentioned as we were crafting it, we had endless conversations about what we were trying to communicate.  As we stared at these three words, another board member said, "I like it.  It is what we do for our children with Down syndrome.  We love them.  We lift them as we teach them skills and help them progress.  And we launch them as we allow them to be involved in the world, especially as adults."  I responded, "That is interesting as I thought about what we do for the parents as a foundation.  We love them when we each out after they have learned of the diagnosis.  We lift them when they get discouraged with health problems, school issues, or community roadblocks.  We launch the parents as we teach them to advocate for their child and those who are coming behind--at school, at church, in places of employment, and in the world."  Then at the meeting last Friday, I learned about another point of view:  Our children with Down syndrome--love, lift, and launch us--by their very natures to be better, stronger, kinder, and more gentle.  Brian and Summer Cheney spoke to us and shared a bit about their journey with their son, Ammon.  Ammon was born at 2 lbs and in addition to Down syndrome had CP, epilepsy, and had cancer twice in his young life.  He passed away about 1 1/2 years ago after a battle with pneumonia at the age of 11.  They spoke about how he did those things for them and for everyone around him.

And the reality is that we all can and often do those same things for the people in our families, our friends, and our communities.  It most often is not in big and flashy ways, but in millions of small little ways that we love and care for each other.  In the busyness of our lives, we sometimes forget that.....so we need to remember.  Love. Lift. Launch.

That was a lot of thinking for the drive home from Salt Lake after the dinner meeting.  Good thing I was thinking that night, because Saturday was almost too busy for any thinking at all.

I did manage to do a bit of housework before heading to Scott and Chantel's to watch Scarlett and James.  I had made some homemade playdough which I had used at work this week so I brought it home to share with Scarlett.  I had hid 8 items in it which she had to find, which she loved.  I think she ended up playing with it for over an hour, hiding and re-hiding the little items.  Then she started making pretend food with it.

Another fun thing we did was facetimed with Niki and Tosha.  It was so cute to watch Scarlett talk to Niki.  She told him that he "had a beautiful haircut" and after he shared a story about something she told him "That is so awesome."

Literally, between bites, James fell asleep.  You can see his fork still in his hand.

From there, Jena and I changed clothes and headed down to Centerville to usher the matinee at CenterPointe Theatre (they are doing "Little Mermaid"). We then changed our clothes again and Gary and Mom Hall picked us up and we all headed down to the Hale Theatre to see "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."  I actually don't think I have ever seen even the Disney version of this movie...except maybe bits and pieces of it.  That is a serious commentary on social justice and related issues.  I wasn't really prepared for that.  However, the production was amazing and the music, costumes, sets, and everything else was stunning.  The main actors' voices were amazing.  This was our first show in the new 'theatre in the round' stage at the new Hale Theatre.  It was a great one to start with as you could see some of the technical marvels of the new building.   

We had actually thought we would be making one more quick change of clothes to make it to our Adult Meeting of Stake Conference.  That was based on the idea that the play would be about 2 hours long.  However it was about 6:40 before we got to our car, so we gave up that plan and headed to dinner at a nearby restaurant. 

All in all, a great Saturday (if you don't worry about laundry, housework, shopping and the "to-do" list--which I didn't).

And It Was March 3rd As Well

Which marked our anniversary--40 years ago!!  Hard to believe as it doesn't seem that long ago.

This is what I posted on Facebook (very late last night):

"I heard this quote first when Pres. Hinckley used it in conference once and i love it. In fact, it hangs in Gary's office wall.

"Life is like an old-time rail journey...delays, side tracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts...interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed."

Jenkins Lloyd Jones

It seems like an appropriate quote after spending the day with Gary and Jena at Roots Tech....celebrating our 40th anniversary.

There is no one better for me to travel this journey of life than Gary Hall. We have had more than our share of beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.

Happy anniversary. .and to eternity and beyond."

I then posted some of our family photos from the past.  I am adding them here, although someday I hope to create a blog book for each year of our marriage and I will add these pictures into the place they belong.  In case that never happens, at least they will be here--

These are framed photos which line shelves in our main hallway.  That is why you see reflections, frames, and not quite clear photos of these photos.

Photo for our Wedding Announcement  1978

(taken in Amarillo, Texas)

First Family Photo with Scott  1987

We used this for his Adoption and Sealing Announcement.

(West Jordan)

Family Photo with 3 kids

Not sure if this was the first one with Ben.

I believe that it might have been the second one 

as he looks around 2 in this picture.

(Hong Kong)

 Texas Family Photo by our Fireplace  1992

(Plano)

Second Family Photo with Jena in it- 2006

(Syracuse, Utah--Bennett Barn)

 Family Photo 2010

First with Chantel

(Grandma and Grandpa field on Grandpa Hall's tractor)

Family Photo 2015

first with Elessia, Austen, Scarlett and Niki

(Layton, UT  East Bench park)

Family Photo 2017

First with Liam, Zander, James, and Cooper

(Layton, UT  Bird Refuge)

Actually, Roots Tech was a great way to spend our anniversary.  I love you, Gary Hall...thanks for traveling this journey with me.  It hasn't much matched the plan we thought in those first few days of married life, but it has been so much better, bigger, and more amazing than I ever imagined.

Root Tech Family Discovery Day 2018

Gary had attend Roots Tech since Wednesday and had enjoyed a large variety of classes and exhibits related to family history and technology.  Roots Tech is the largest family history conference in the world with about 15000 people in attendance for the first three days and an additional 11,000 for the Family Discovery Day which is directed at LDS families.  After attending last year, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to attend again this year, even though I couldn't get away from work to attend any of the other days of the conference.

We got up early on Saturday so that we could take the Front Runner down.  There was suppose to be a terrible winter storm coming in that evening and we thought we would avoid the parking problems and driving in the storm by taking the train.

I am holding Gary's Conference bag.
"Forever"

There was already snow on the mountains but they were predicting several inches more in the upcoming storm. 

Welcome to ROOTS TECH 2018!

We immediately were welcomed by the sounds of salsa music and dancing as we entered the Salt Palace.  Today was a tribute to Latino Cultures and throughout the day, there was music and dancing groups in the lobby to entertain conference goers as they walked from class to class.

Our first formal class was Jason Hewett and Hank Smith, who spoke last year.  This year they shared more of their own testimonies of family history and all of the interesting things that you can do on the Family Search phone app.  You all should get that app on your phone and start having fun!!

I loved how you can see Jason and Hank's silhouettes on the screen as a video was played about some of the promises for families as they engage in family history work.  One great message was that every day as you interact with your families, you are engaged in building memories and creating family history.  Both, researching your family who has gone before and building and recording memories of your current lives are part of family history and allow you to strengthen family members yet to be born. 

We took a quick look around the Expo Hall after the first session and I had to take photos from the Norwegian booth.  No one was there to talk to so that I could explain that I just recently learned that I was part Norwegian, but I grabbed some literature and hopefully there is some things I can share with Uncles Ed and Mike sometime.

Jena posted by a dress worn by Eliza Snow.  This was the Heirloom booth and encourage people to keep, preserve and share items from their family.

As an extra bonus, we got to visit for a few minutes with our friends, Robynn and Dick Thiot, as we waited for the next session to start with Pres. and Sis. Oaks.  They are in town from Plano, Texas, to visit Robynn's dad and to enjoy the conference.  It is fun to share family history with family AND with friends.

They took a picture of the three of us.  The lights shifted from red to blue and back again so it wasn't the best light for photos, but great memories nevertheless.

Pres. Oaks and his wife did a very nice job.  I loved their ideas about creating a Bedtime story book with family stories to read and I also loved the "Getting to Know Your Relatives" Night. My sister, Valerie, was watching from her home in Mesa and before their talk ended, she had texted me that we should have a "Eileen" party to share our mom with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Pres. Oaks had a "Stella" night to share his mom with the family.  So many great ideas which can bring our families closer and honor the amazing people who have completed their journeys on earth.

Gary and I love the Relative Race which is on BYU TV and the third season starts tonight.  It is a type of reality show where couples or two family members race across the country against three other couples to meet family members and to do challenges.  These are family members they usually don't know who were found based on the Ancestry DNA.

They had two of the cars used in this season's race.  I guess we are voting for the green team this year.  We will see.

More Latino music on our way out of the conference---

One sweet moment occur when this couple stepped out and began dancing a Latin two-step of some kind.  I teared up as I watched them dance and thought about the memories that this music and this dance must have brought to them.  As I looked in the audience, I noticed many older people of Hispanic descent singing along in Spanish with tears in their eyes.  I had never heard the song before nor did I know the dance....but it didn't matter.  I felt the love, the connection, the joy, and the sense of belonging that it brought to those standing near me.  I have been away from familiar things in my life and I know how sweet it is to see and to feel them once again. And although this was not my history or my culture, I stood in one with them as we share that feeling of connection and belonging.

And that was just a small taste of the feelings that we all were going to experience as we gathered at the closing ceremonies for ROOTS TECH Latino Celebration............

Because of the door we entered, we were about 10 rows up from the stage.  I took this picture before the event started as I knew that we were not to take pictures during the actual event.

I took this photo from a friend's facebook post which she took from her much higher spot in the Conference Center....

 

Words can't describe how awesome this experience was for me.  First, the music, the dancing, the comments, and the entire production was amazing.  Everyone should watch it, especially if you love Latino culture or just love people.  It is awesome.

Here is a link--not sure how long it will work, but if you have some time, go to lds.org and watch the Roots Tech   Luz de Las Naciones 2018.

 https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/latino-event-my-family/2018/03?cid=HP_SA-3-3-2018_dFHD_fBCAST_xLIDyM_&lang=eng

For some reason when they put it on the site, it includes an hour of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  That might get fixed, but if not, go to -2.05 in the video and that is around the start of the program.

I already mentioned my response to seeing the couple dance spontaneously in the lobby of the Salt Palace.  Imagine how I felt waiting in line with almost 20, 000 people, most Hispanic families, to watch this production.  First, I felt like I was back in Texas---something that makes me happy anytime.  To hear Spanish spoken around me reminded me of many experiences I have had in Texas and my friends who are Hispanic.

It triggered another memory from Texas, too.  While we were living in Plano, the Hong Kong Children's Choir came to the Ft. Worth area to perform at one of the very large Baptist Churches in the area.  I decided that it would be a good experience to share with Ben and Tosha who were about 8 and 7 at the time.  Gary and I took the two of them.  There was a huge crowd--mostly Chinese and other Asians who were there, also with their children.  I hadn't expected that and it overwhelmed me again with that sense of belonging and connection with Chinese people that is such a part of me.  So many memories of Hong Kong and China came quickly to me in that moment.  It was really a sacred moment to share the music of the Children's Choir--part religious and part Asian--with people who loved it so.

So I was already emotional, so this two hour program, part in Spanish and part in English--sharing the culture, the music, the dance and traditions of the Latino and Hispanic cultures--was breathtaking.  I loved how the crowd would recognize the song after just a couple of notes and start to cheer long before the song or dance began.  I loved how they recognized the singers before their names were announced.  I loved how those around me recognized their own family members on stage including their little children who were dancing the dances of their generations gone by.  I loved how the music, the words, and the dances played tribute to families--past, present, and future.  The colors, the beats, the moves--so Latin--but the message so universal--"We are a part of who have gone before and we are the link to those who come after.  Be strong."

Seriously, you will want to watch this.

It seemed appropriate that this is the last picture for the day.  A look at the spires of the Salt Lake Temple as we waited for the Trax to take us to our train.  It is there that we stand and honor those who have gone before and those coming afterwards by creating links to eternity.

Truly, families are together forever!  What a day!!